Datalogic invests in vision-based technology

Datalogic, one of the Retail Technology sectors leading vendors announced yesterday that it has acquired US-based Evolution Robotics Retail, a leader in vision based technology and analytical tools geared towards loss prevention in the retail sector.

With Datalogic’s already strong presence in the Retail Scanning and Mobility market place, this acquisition adds an innovative perspective to the company’s technology portfolio and gives it a foothold in the up-and-coming loss prevention sector.  It is also a strong sign of Datalogic’s appetite to continue to invest in its Retail activities and to continue to challenge other vendors in the sector for market leadership.

Although Evolution Robotics Retail was only founded in 2006, it has established strong credentials as a leading edge technology player in the Loss Prevention sector with its object recognition based solutions.

It will be an interesting development to watch for new applications of this innovative use of camera based technology.

A full announcement of the acquisition can be found by following the link below.

http://tiny.cc/augsq

The thoughts of a successful man

Ever tried to get into the mindset of some of the great business achievers of our time?

Click the link below to go to a recent LinkedIn article where Steve Jobs of Apple lists 10 thoughts that contributed to making him what he is today.

http://tinyurl.com/3ane3ns

Whilst philosophical thought is not necessarily everyone’s cup of tea in business it does help to put the person in context.

I will endeavor to share other examples of this as I find them.

Enjoy your week!

Is the future Cloudy for Enterprise Applications?

The market place for enterprise applications such as ERP, Content Management, Business Intelligence, CRM, etc. has changed significantly over recent years and is in the process of undergoing even more change with the emergence of Cloud Based applications to serve the need for Enterprise Information. So what are the implications for traditional client-server applications and for legacy systems across this market place.

Less than 5 years ago it was unusual to see applications running in any other environment than on an internally hosted server with Local or Wide Area networks providing user access. This was always a challenge for businesses that had disparate information or dispersed office structures, whether that was National or International.

There are now a significant number of Software Technology businesses emerging that deliver solutions to this problem by hosting the Enterprise applications on either remote servers or on virtual servers within “The Cloud” and creating the applications in a web environment to make them accessible Globally.

This has been a strategic breakthrough for a veritable army of Application Developers to provide on-demand applications on a Software as a Service (SaaS) basis making these applications very affordable to businesses, an important factor during the current challenging financial climate.

Taking this a step further, there are specialists that can provide completely bespoke or heavily tailored solutions  within the price range and time scale of typical traditional applications.

EMC, recently acquired a company called Archer Technologies that provide a range of on-demand solutions within the Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) sector. This brings a very flexible offering to EMC’s portfolio to complement their traditional Enterprise Data Management product set such as Documentum.

Other emerging organisations such as Factonomy based in East Lothian provide a similar range of solutions within the Business Continuity Management (BCM) arena that are Cloud-friendly, web centric applications developed within a very powerful framework with a Declarative XML based process engine at the heart of it. Factonomy’s proposition is attracting a great deal of interest within information hungry sectors including Banking & Insurance, Aerospace, Telecommunications, Legal, and Public Sector Authorities as well as gaining the attention of the market research companies such as Gartner, Forrester etc. that are watching their progress.

Whilst being interesting from a trends point of view, the installed base of legacy systems still demand a significant level of investment to keep them current as the cost and time overhead of porting such valuable strategic information onto a new platform can be very prohibitive.

Future development is therefore very clear on the need to make good use of existing information by utilising such data access technologies as REST and SOA.

So the future for enterprise applications within the Cloud is bright, and does not necessarily mean having to put legacy systems in the shade.

End of an era, or a major turning point?

With the end of a 13 year Labour Government almost coinciding with the end of one of the most significant recessions experienced by the UK in over 75 years how will the market view the current situation? As the end of an era or as a major turning point?

Many of the UK’s middle and senior managers will not have experienced such a tumultuous period. With an almost unique decline in the financial markets significantly affecting commercial lending combined with (or arguably causing) a shuddering slow-down of capital investment across most industries, it is little wonder that sales cycles have been hyper-extended resulting in some quite stringent head-count reductions within Sales departments of many enterprise solutions vendors. This has inevitably created a large pool of readily available, highly qualified sales resources.

Many companies will now be considering whether the time is right to start re-investing or restructuring their Sales teams in order to steal a march on their competitors and snap up the “Pick of the crop” of available executives, or whether to wait further to see tangible signs of business growth before making a move.

As Warren Buffett is purported to have said, “When the markets are bold, act with restraint; but when markets are restrained, be bold”.

I would like to think that now that spring is here, that the recession is (hopefully) behind us, and that we are about to enter into a new period of balanced Government, now is the time for Business leaders to take a look at the strategic future of their organisations and make ready for a period of sustainable growth.

In Martial Arts there is a saying: “My enemy moves, and I move first!”, make sure you are the one to make the effective first move.

Welcome to the new forum for Technology Business Senior Executives

“Welcome to the opening of my new website targeted at the Senior Executive community within Technology Businesses around the UK.

The aim of this site is to bring news, views and comment together which enriches the daily lot of those Senior Execs that interested in sharing an objective viewpoint on a variety of topics including:

• Interesting industry events
• Market movement and activities
• Industry challenges
• Business in general

I hope you will all contribute objectively to this open forum and look forward to your comments and views.”